Halong Bay, Vietnam

Every tourist to Vietnam should include an overnight stay on a boat in Halong Bay. From Hanoi, the trip is about 3 hours, but once out of the city, the highway is reasonably free of traffic. We hired a driver to avoid being stuck in a van subject to a schedule of when to leave and return.


Along the way, I am fascinated by the new Vietnamese houses along the road.

In many of these houses, the bottom floor serves as either a shop or a garage with the living done further up. Almost all are 3 stories high. The newer ones are usually quite attractive with wooden doors and attractively trimmed with colorful paint. The number of new houses I saw along the way is evident that economic development is doing well within the country.

When ever one travels along a tourist route, it is almost certain that the driver will stop where a WC can be used if desired and shop for silk and other items indigenous to the country. We are very wary of spending money for items that are very attractive, because we are always concerned about how to transport anything back in our suit cases. Nevertheless, Judith bought some coffee table/serving dishes for future gift giving and I bought an embroidered panel that I am still wondering how to display it. Some of the embroidering was simply breathe taking and is a big cottage industry judging from the number of young people engaged in producing some very high quality work.


The signs told us the proceeds are used to fund orphanages.

We welcomed reaching out destination and had some time to stretch and drink a diet Coke, which are plentiful throughout Vietnam. We quickly see that there will be only 3 other people on our boat. Our large cabin is at the front of the boat and affords ultimate privacy with lounge chairs on our private balcony.


There are more people traveling as staff than passengers for a Thursday overnight stay, but the crew said the boat is booked full for the weekend.

We lunch on board after getting settled in our cabin. The galley is well appointed and the food is delicious. In the evening the French captain comes to every table to chat temporarily leaving his young Vietnamese girl friend. He spoke English very well with just a trace of French accent, helping to add an exotic favor to our conversation and the boat’s atmosphere.

We discover that the five star Emeraude is modeled in the tradition of the single wheel steamboat of the colonial era. The original Emeraude was one of the flotillas owned by the Roque family who left Bordeaux in 1858 in search of fame and fortune. The fleet cruised along Indochina waterways and Halong Bay in the olden days. The original Emeraude sank in the Bay in 1937. Using advanced techniques, French architects painstakingly modeled the new vessel from old photos and drawings found at the Paris' Maritime Museum.

Halong Bay is a Unesco World Heritage Site (and one of the 1000 things to see before you die) so capitalistic competition has come here with several newer and more attractive boats visible on the waters.

But the Emeraude has its own grand style and a well trained staff. We would recommend this cruise ship to anyone.

The boat is geared to act as a cruise ship with a list of activities, including an excursion to a cave, kayaking, swimming off the rear of the boat, the making of spring rolls, and showing the movie “Indochine” in the evening. As we have been through a number of limestone caves in the past, we choose to have massages while the other 3 passengers went through the cave.

I am making a spring roll here after watching the head chef making a couple of them. Mine were not as pretty, but just as tasty. This is something to try at home, if you can find the thin rice wrappings.

The chef also demonstrated how to make a rose by pealing a tomato and how to make a turkey from a tomato. The turkey is on the left. Making a rose is really pretty easy but I might need a refresher course on the turkey.


Sitting on a private balcony, cruising through Halong Bay with a refreshing drink on hand, has to be a tourist’s dream.

Here are some of my better photos.

The ships anchored in a cove at night.

This was a majestic, mystical experience. How lucky I am to be living my life like this.

Back to Hanoi the next morning and on to Hue the next day.

Hanoi, Vietnam

Less than 50 years ago Hanoi was thought to be the potential tipping point of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the western democracies. At the time the United States entered the war in Vietnam, the popular reason was the domino theory which stated, if Vietnam goes communistic, then Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippians and god know who else, will surely follow. None of these countries are communistic today. But Vietnam is. So whether or not America’s involvement stopped the dominos from falling, or whether North Vietnam fought only to unify the country and drive out the puppet corrupt government in South Vietnam and secure their own political ambitious, probably depends on your politics.

I do know this, nearly 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam and more than 2 million Vietnamese. And contrary to popular conception, American did not lose the war. America withdrew its troops in March 1973 having signed a peace treaty in Paris under President Nixon (who campaigned on the promise that he had a secret plan for Vietnam) and left Vietnam to Vietnamization, or in other words, let the two sides settle things between them. And 25 months later, the north captured Saigon and soon after named the city Ho Chi Minh City.

We flew to Hong Kong and 2 hours later flew to HCMC where we stayed overnight in a hotel near the airport leaving the next day via Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi. The airport in Hanoi is quite a distance from the center of the city and our French colonial hotel, the Metropole. The traffic is similar to Indonesia, with motorbikes the principle means of transportation. Our taxi driver is aggressive as are most, and weaves in and out of traffic using the horn to encourage motorbikes to move out of the way.

The Metropole luxury hotel has been in existence since 1901 and every important historical figure that has come to Hanoi has stayed here. A lot of French people were in evidence and the staff will greet you with “Bon Jour” in the morning if they are uncertain of your nationality.

This photo was taken from in front of the opera house. There is no underpass for pedestrians and no stop light to make the cross. The trick to crossing streets is to move slowly, steadily and predictably so the motorbikes can maneuver around you.

The conference Judith attended was held across the street from the hotel at the Press Club, which by its name, tells you that foreign correspondences reported the war happenings there and I am sure there were no Americans involved.

I hung out at the pool when I was not raining or walked around the nearby streets. One can easily live in the hotel.  It has several resturants and bars including one around the pool.  When you sit on a lounge around the pool, the attendant brings you a skewer of fresh fruit and an ice filled glass of water.  Forget the cost, if you ever stay in Hanoi, stay at the Metropole.

People still use the streets to vend their wares. That is fresh meat in the foreground.

The hats in this photo are in much of the art work seen around the entire country.

On the other side of the opera house is the Hilton Opera Hotel, not to be confused with the Hilton that hosted John McCain et alia. Here is the lobby and one of the great art visible there.

The climate in Hanoi was cool and rainy while we were there but when the skies cleared, the sun made it hot, but nothing like the heat we experience elsewhere.

When the conference was finished Judith had made arrangements for us to spend one night on a big boat in Halong Bay, 3 hours away by car and then return to the hotel for one additional night before flying the next day to Hei.

Changsha, China

Changsha, about half way between Shanghai and Hong Kong, is the capital of Hunan Province with a rich ancient history dating back about 1000 BC. The population of the city proper is about 1.5 million, but the sprawling urban area contains over 6 million. During our time there, I noted that there was no pollution due to almost constant rain and misty drizzle that fell every day. The sun shown very briefly when we landed, then never was it seen again until we ascended out of the clouds on our way back to Beijing, four days later.


The Great Navigator, Chairman Mao was educated here and worked briefly as a teacher. As a young man he gave speeches here and recruited members for the Communist Party. A 23-foot-high statue of Mao in the city square has recently been re-covered in pure gold.

It is regarded as a place of learning, with three major universities, a number of technical institutes, hospitals, medical schools and fireworks factories. The city has attracted skilled workers and it is regarded as something of media, Internet and cultural center for China. Much of the nations animation and television programming is based in Changsha.

The AIDS prevention workshop was presented to English speaking university students at a university auditorium. Although able to understand English and speak it to some degree, translation was offered in Chinese for the presenters that spoke English. This seems an appropriate place to segue to a fact that should raise an eyebrow or two. By the year 2016, it is projected that China will be the largest English speaking country in the world!

I have no desire at my age to attempt to learn to speak Chinese, but some have told me that because the language has no verb tenses and nouns have no gender, it is not hard to learn. But one must be able to master inflections and where to place the emphasis on a word because a word has many different meanings depending on how it is said.

We are often amused by Chingalese signs (signs written in English) that have improper meanings to words or badly misspelled. I can only guess that the signs were made by people that thought they knew what they were doing, but never asked anyone that actually was fluent in English to proof read it.

We were housed in a complex that was built for government officials 30 or 40 years ago. We refer to such places as Stalin Hotels. This one was much better than some we have stayed in and the landscaping was outstanding.

This photo also shows what the weather was like during most of our stay except when it was actually raining. We were given a huge suite of two rooms that would be called the “Presidential Suite” in the states. But we only used the bedroom due to the reak of Chinese tobacco in the main room. The bedroom was not as bad.


We didn’t have much time for tourism on this trip but we were taken to Yuelu Academy that was founded in 976 AD and many photographic opportunities were presented. The academy was named Hunan Univeristy in 1926 and it has been preserved to show the ancient culture.

Here are a few of the photos I took.

At the workshop, Judith asked that Mark from Chicago’s Howard Brown Clinic for Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender people (and any other sexual life style variation), to speak about the work done there to protect people from sexually transmitted diseases. Among other things, they offer free HIV testing and counseling.


He was very entertaining and the Chinese for most interested in what he had to say. They asked many questions. Later at the close of the workshop and at the final dinner banquet, Mark got into a drinking contest with the host.

Mark is in the stripped shirt. Mark won the contest, but we suggested to him afterwards that he should have stopped long before and ceded the contest to the host (seen on the left). I have been the subject of these contests before, but I have learned to avoid them. I mean what is the point?

Indonesian Photos Submitted for Publication

The Sweet Science

Somewhere during my youth, probably after age 10, my father taught me to box.


This was the age when the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis was heavyweight champion of the world. He was considered “an inspiration for his race” in the newspapers and was the very first ethnic African national hero. Up to that time, his most famous bout was pummeling former champion German Max Schmeling in June 1938 ending the fight in 2 minutes 4 seconds of the first round. In many ways this fight was more a political contest against two nations about to clash in an epic war.

The Olympic Games were held in Berlin in 1936 and Jesse Owens was the star of the games winning 4 gold metals. Hitler and his propaganda machine had been sending out the message that the Aryan race was far superior to the ethnic African race, so Owens delivered a crushing blow to this concept.

So Hitler was anxious for Schmeling to revive the Aryan superiority with a victory and FDR met with Louis a few weeks before the fight, telling him “we need muscles like yours to defeat Germany”. Schmeling, to his credit, considered himself a fighter and not a Nazi but at the time his protestation received no press.

 

 One memory that stands out about boxing was listening to the second Billy Conn, Joe Louis fight. My father and I attended a high school basketball game the fight of the fight in 1946 and sitting behind us was a man you had the newest technology gadget, a portable radio. After the game was over, the fight was still going on and about 15 of us gathered outside the gym huddled around the man with the radio, listening to Don Dunphy describe the fight, hoping the batteries would last to the end.

I was tall for my age and skinny, with my arms longer for my body that normal. One of the statistics used to describe boxers is “reach” so in that respect my long arms were an advantage. I learned to jab with my left and cross with my right, to keep my guard up, to stay on my toes and dance out of range of my opponents blows.

In my day, young men frequently settled their disagreements with fisticuffs. We didn’t carry knives or guns. And due to my boxing skills I could hold my own with anyone in my class even the few bigger or taller than me. I would frequently get into minor skirmishes on the playground when I was challenged or I challenged someone. I never started a fight but I never backed down from one either.

As it turned out, most of the boys with whom I had fist fights, became my friends later. When we moved into team sports, having individual disputes seemed to vanish in the interest of working together with team mates to accomplish a goal.

After we got a TV in the early 50’s, I watched the Friday Night Fights every Friday night I was home. I watched Sugar Ray Robinson beat Jake LaMotta so badly they had to stop the fight because Jake, the Raging Bull would not go down. I remember other champions of Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Wolcott, Willy Pep, Floyd Patterson, and welcomed the arrival of Sonny Liston, Joe Frazer, and Cassis Clay (who changed into Mohammed Ali).

I remember going to a movie theater with my mother in Dayton to watch the Clay-Liston fight. Most people around us before the fight thought Liston was indestructible and mother and I tenuously voiced our confidence that Clay would win.

My last fight was an epic event. During recess or before school when I was in 9th grade, anyone that wanted to join in played soft ball where you got to bat as long as you didn’t make an out. If you hit a fly ball, the person who caught it replaced you at bat.

There was this boy Rudy, who decided that the rules didn’t apply to him. And when I challenged him about it, he threatened me, probably thinking I would back down. Wrong!

Since fighting on the school yard during school would result in serious consequences, arrangements were made to meet after school in nearby Bayliss Park.

I arrive first with many classmates there for support or for the same reasons people watch NASCAR. Rudy arrives and before we start fighting, he shows everyone that he is wearing a ring which had a miniature saddle as the centerpiece. The ring is meant to cut my face. My sense of fair play was enraged and Rudy became the villain to the crowd.

Rudy was a wrestler but I knew how to box, and I had a longer reach. Occasionally, Rudy would land a punch and it hurt. The inside of my mouth got chewed up from the braces on my teeth. But his ring didn’t leave any permanent marks. Nothing compared to the beating I gave Rudy. He didn’t show up in school for a week afterwards. I blacked both his eyes and to save face, he didn’t return to school until the discoloration went away.

Rudy was a bully before we fought, but not afterwards. No one ever wanted to challenge me after that. I retired on top and never ever did I fist fight again.

College Days and Beyond

Besides working every summer and during holiday breaks to secure money for my college education, I worked a number of jobs while on campus.

I ran track and cross country for two years hoping to secure an athletic scholarship but I gradually found out that such a thing was not going to happen. Scholarship were given only for football, basketball and wrestling at Iowa State with rare exceptions that my talent couldn’t meet.

But my track coach would occasionally find work for me cleaning up the grandstands after a home football game. So myself and several other jocks showed up on a few Sunday mornings, gathered up large sweeping brooms and climbed to the top of the grandstands and started to push all the peanut shells, popcorn boxes and various contra-banded empty liquor bottles and beer cans downward. Then the garbage was centralized and scooped up into trucks and hauled away. The problem was that there were so many of us, the job didn’t last very long, minimizing our actual take away pay.

I waited tables, first at Theta Delta Chi, my fraternity, then later at a sorority. I learned to always serve from the left, serve the women first when they were guests, and how to carry three plates at a time. Actually, I could carry five plates but the limit was 3 for the sake of proper waiter etiquette. But certain on rare days when the house mother was away, 5 plates it was. Of course most of the work was done after the meal was over. The job of dishwasher was rotated and while he was washing, the other two would help the cook put food away, dry the dishes, pots, and pans, and ret up the dining room.

I considered it an upgrade to secure a job with the wait staff at the Sigma Kappa sorority, even though my job was washing the pots and pans and the sorority was 3 blocks away from my fraternity. Usually there were only about 25 sisters and pledges to feed compared to about 40 at my fraternity. The difference made the job quicker and easier.

Considering that females at Iowa State were only 40 % of the student body, working at a sorority had some fringe benefits. At this particular time, the Sig Kaps were known to have many members that were less than beautiful and/or overweight. In fact the house mother was always trying to have her menu reflect small servings and healthy food. The result was that four guys in the kitchen ate about 30% of the food and 30 gals ate the other 70%. I was a good job all in all. Two of us were from the same fraternity and the other two were Phi Psis and we all got along very well.

A class mate and I worked in our department one summer on various projects. I remember one job was to eliminate the central belt driven motor for all the various machines used in the Ceramic Engineering department and add a motor for each machine. The machines had to have its individual concrete base poured for each motor and hook up the motor to the machine.

Later I did library research from one of my professor’s research project. I spent hours trying to find information about phase equilibriums of various materials.

One Fall I took part in the annual United Fund drive called the “The Ugliest Man on Campus” or UMOC. This was not a paying job, but it was associated with raising money. I put a silk stocking on my head and made a face and my photo was taken. Then 2000 flyers with my ugly face were printed up and distributed on bulletin boards across the campus. Voting is done by contributing to the United Fund, designating the person who is the ugliest as you gave. I had no hope of winning because large fraternities make sure one of their members wins by working hard to secure donations. But I finished a respectable 5th.
 

One of the worst jobs I ever had at college was setting bowling pins at the student union. I got paid $.35 a line, so if 4 persons bowled a set, I made $1.40. This was before automatic pin setters. Myself and my fellow pin setters would work two alleys at a time. We positioned ourselves between the alleys and when a ball and pins would come into a pit, we would move there, pick up the ball first and set it on the return rail and give it a little top spin so it would reach the collection stop. We would drop the hydraulic operated reset tray, pick up four pins at a time, two in each hand, and drop them into position. After a strike or second ball on a spare came through, the tray was dropped and a new 10-pin pattern was presented.

It was dangerous and dirty work. One pin-setter next to me lost a tooth, when a pin went flying and hit him in the face. The pit was extremely dusty due to the constant abrasion of pins against pins, and pins against bowling ball combined with neglectful janitorial service.

I developed calluses on both hand between my third and fourth fingers where I grabbed the second pin. And my back was sore from the constant bending down and raising up. So the job was physically demanding, environmentally unpleasant, and dangerous.

I do remember a few incidents that while embarrassing at the time, cause me to smile every time I recall them. One time I hurried too quickly to return the ball to the return track by applying top spin before the ball was securely on the track, causing the ball to jump off the track, bounce unto the lane, and cause a collusion with a ball just delivered by a bowler hoping for a strike. “Bonk” resounded very loudly and could be heard several alleys away.

Another time I got out of sync, thinking the bowler already had thrown two balls, and I lowered the re-set tray prematurely just in time for the ball to smack the tray. The two make an interesting clanging sound when they meet. And the bowler let out a roar, probably because he thought the ball would have been a strike. And perhaps he was right.

Believe me when it came time to graduate, I looked forward to a life as a professional engineer and a nice income. That worked out pretty well, until 30 years later when I was out of a job and started to work at Jewel supermarket, stocking grocery shelves while I sought employment in engineering.

After 18 months not being employed in the engineering field, I was able to reinvent myself as an Environmental Engineer, a field I worked in for my remaining professional life. As it turned out, it was a thoroughly interesting second career.

I have had many different jobs in my life and to use one of my favorite mantras to close this saga, “everything counts in life”. Without all these experiences, I would be a different person than I am now.

Going Downhill Fast

“Dave, we need someone to go over and race with the class “D” group.”

I had started skiing about 3 years before, taking my first ski lesson at Greek Peak, a small ski area near Cortland, New York, half way between Binghamton and Schenectady. My girl friend’s home town was Cortland and she was a part owner of a condo just across from the ski area on the town’s outskirts. At that time, Patricia and I were involved in a new and exciting romance. We met because I was friends with her ex-husband and when I moved the family to Lancaster, PA, she was there, she was strikingly beautiful, and we were both single. We had much in common and loved active sports. What was not to like?

During Thanksgiving weekend 1979, we drove up to Greek Peak with my daughter and her two sons, to spend a couple of days on the slopes. Talk was that my daughter, Kristi and I would rent ski equipment and take beginner lessons together, while Patricia went skiing with her sons. And so it happened.

I was both anxious and exhilarated to begin skiing. I had never been remotely close to skiing and never even knew anyone that was a skier until I met Patricia, other than her ex-husband. Burnt in my memory forever, is how awkward I felt when boards were put on my feet and I was asked to then walk sideways up a very slight knoll to begin my first descent.

Kristi and I were athletic and determined to become comfortable with the label of “skier” and after many failed attempts to remain upright we were soon making turns with our skies formed in the shape of a wedge. As I progressed in honing my incipient skills I realized that skiing is all about overcoming fear by gaining both skill and confidence motivated by desire to succeed. Soon I was able to advance to the chair lift and the bunny hill.

A year later I was able almost keep up with Patti. She was an elegant and graceful skier while I relied on brute strength and courage trying to master both speed and control. Many times losing control resulted in spectacular wipe outs resulting ski, poles, hats, gloves, and goggles flying off in various directions with me bravely struggling off still another bruise. One morning while on a week long ski trip, I was so sore and beat up that I had difficulty getting out of bed. I decided than and there that I would devote my efforts to mastering more control and sacrifice some speed.

Eventually my days living in the East came to an end and a couple of years later, our romance finally ended also, but the skiing stayed with me and remains to this day.

“Dave, we need someone to go over and race with the class “D” group.” It is March 1983 and I am on a Midwest bus weekend ski trip with Fort Wayne Ski Club. The person talking to me is the race captain for the club. We are at Boyne, Michigan and all ski clubs that belong to the Indiana Ski Council have descended there for a weekend of ski racing, drinking, and making out as much as possible.

I explain to the race captain that I have never raced before but that does not dissuade her from enlisting me. I am given instructions where to go and soon I am standing in line with a numbered paper racing bib on my chest waiting to go as fast as possible around poles with flags on the top and to do so without falling down.

By this time, I have had time to size up some my competition and it is pretty plain to me that I can ski as well or better than most of them as determined how they looked skiing over to the starting area. Thankfully, I was not one of the first to plunge down the slope so I have a chance to observe what some of the better skiers did.

It seems that there was this wand across the starting place and as soon as your legs push through it, the timer clock starts running and there is an electric eye at the finish line, which stops the clock when you break the beam. So from my observation point, the goal was to get going as fast as possible at the start.

When my turn comes, I place my poles over the starting wand and as I wait briefly to hear that the course is clear, I try to think, “breathe out fear, breathe in energy” to try to eliminate my considerable anxiety. Suddenly I hear, “go when ready racer” from the starter. I push out with all my strength and skate hard towards the first pole. Around the first 3 flagged poles (I learn later to talk them “gates”) I go, trying to look ahead and see the next challenge. I am picking up speed as the slope gets steeper. At the fourth gate, my instinct takes over and my weight goes to the tails of my skies causing to spin 180 degrees and almost fall down. I turned about as fast as possible and continued until the 8th gate where a reoccurrence took place. I recovered again and continued on through the finish line, disappointed that I didn’t do better, but I heart was pounding and I felt the adrenalin kick in. “Wow, I want to do that again, I know I can do better”, were my thoughts.

And so it began. Later that night at the awards banquet, medals were handled out for the first 10 places in each racing category. I came in 9th even with all the mistakes I made and I was amazed. Obtaining a 9th place medal in the lowest race class helped me realize I had potential.

Two years later I won the ski club’s “Most Improved Skier” award and also the Veteran Men’s Challenge Cup for my overall season performance. My name was engraved on the club’s huge Challenge Cup and I was presented a miniature cup to keep. I got to keep the big cup for a year and fortunately I had a fireplace mantel to give it prominence.

When I came to Chicago and joined Lake Shore Ski Club, I was soon well known because I started winning the club’s ski races dethroning the long time champions. This in turn led to becoming the club’s president as well as several other positions within the club. I became a certified ski instructor when I retired and I also met my wife on a weekend bus trip.

I have a trophy case filled with medals and trophies and sitting in the center is my 9th place medal in honor of how it all started.

Skiing is a life sport and if there is a desire to improve it is possible. So as I complete my 30th year skiing, I am positive that I continue to improve, not only as an all around skier but on the race course also. It probably it unrealistic to think this will continue, but I really don’t want to think about it. Not now anyway, I am having way too much fun.

Thank You for the Music, ABBA.

On my daughter Vikki’s birthday 3 weeks ago, I thought of a comment she made to me about ABBA, the Swedish rock group.

Both daughters, Vikki and Kristi, encouraged me to start a blog so I could post my travelogue stories and pictures of the many places I have visited. So I set up a blog and filled out my profile. The profile had a place for my favorite music and among the listing of Pink Floyd, Yes, The Stones, Billy Joel, The Eagles, Loggins and Messina , and so forth, and I added ABBA.

When Vikki read this she wrote me a one word question. ABBA? I am not sure exactly why the question but I assumed it was either that she didn’t know that I liked ABBA, or ABBA did not appeal to her high standards of music or she didn’t feel ABBA fit in with the others in my list.

I wrote back to her that I would answer her question in a future post on my blog. So here goes.

During the mid-80’s, I lived in the Soviet Union for about 6 months, spending most of my time in Voronezh, Russia, with temporary stays in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Moscow. Actually I got to Moscow several times, one or two weeks at a time. But that left plenty of time to while away the long, dark, cold winters days and nights in Voronezh.

Vilnius and Moscow were capitol cities and even in the dieing days of the Soviet Union, one could find time to eat caviar, drink Champagne, trade shots of vodka with the men, and dance with the women. In fact, I had a blast, greatly influenced by the lovely and vibrant companionship of Natasha when in Moscow.

Voronezh was 200 miles south of Moscow located on the Don River where forests were so thick, the Tsar created the Russian Navy there due to the available lumber and access to the Black Sea and Mediterranean, Outside of the circus coming to town or an occasional night club (if you want to call it that) or going to the ballet whose dancers were class “C” leaguers to reach the Boishoi big league. Most everything else was ennui.

 I brought in a lot of jig saw puzzles to work on and I finished them all, never to ever want to put one together again. A hot shower in the morning was almost impossible as the water came from a central system in another part of town. I couldn’t be heated fast enough to supply the need in the morning and of course there were the heat losses that occurred between loci.

The place I worked was never warm enough and my nose was cold all day except when I could stick it over a steaming hot bowl of watery soup provided at lunch. None of meals in Voronezh provided any sort of culinary delight accept the pizza I made from a boxes of Pillsbury Hot Roll Mix from my suitcase, plus tomato sauce, garlic, cheese, and sausage all locally available sometimes, When I saw any of these things, I bought them right then because tomorrow they would be gone. Even without the oregano, they were tasty and American.

And with me in Voronezh and Natasha in Moscow, the lack of a warm body next to me at night certainly was a minus. Physical contact with someone is part of my mantra of how to achieve a happier life. It was missing. So in summary, I was cold, lonely and bored.

ABBA was first popular in Europe at that time and I was able to hear ABBA sing “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance of Me” in the night spots and sometimes on the short wave radio. Granted they are not the mood changer that Mick Jagger can be, but I found there songs uplifting. They were a small, but important improvement to my days and nights. During an R and R week outside the Soviet Union, I bought a portable tape player and some tapes of ABBA and Pink Floyd and took them in with me.

When I left the Soviet Union I gave the player and tapes with Natasha and she gave me 3 small jars of black beluga caviar. I was not happy to leave her.  I am so thankful we met and shared our lives with each other. I will not ever forget her.

For many months after I returned to the U.S. whenever I heard ABBA my thoughts never dwell on the loneliness, coldness, or boredom but only the good times I had. So ABBA, “Thank You for the Music”.

"Forgiving Dr. Mengele"

My thoughts after seeing a film in a class about "forgiveness."

The movie "Forgiving Dr. Mengele" was documentary about a woman, Eva Kors, who survived Auschwitz and Dr. Mengele.

In order to be free of the terrible mental pain afterwards, she found a way to forgive the people that were so cruel to her and in so doing released the pain inside and found peace. She was so strongly convinced that if others when through the process of forgiveness (please do understand it is a process) that she lectured the world over.

I had a lot of therapy in my late thirties. I had alot of anger inside me and in therapy I released it gradually, and not without a lot of resistance to doing so, my re-feeling it and directing it at the images of my parents. And after repeating the process over and over, the pain mostly went away and I found as though I crossed over to another side. I found peace and as a byproduct forgiveness toward my parents came with it.

Forty years ago my wife died suddenly. The key element of my successful grieving process was to direct all my anger towards her first, then me second. And in so doing I was able to forgive her and then myself.

The documentary didn't show any part of the steps involved in getting to forgiveness. It didn't show the hard, long and painful getting over process necessary to get to the forgiveness part.

The key to the path of forgiveness therefore, is to confront the anger aggressively, feel the pain associated with it, and after awhile forgiveness comes. But one will never find forgiveness without acknowledging the anger and dealing with it. One can not just decide to forgive, it doesn’t work that way.

Many in the class, during the following discussion period, seemed to find it strange that forgiveness should be an endeavor to want to achieve. The film showed a courageous woman more than it showed how to achieve forgiveness. Many didn't even believe the woman truly had forgiven.

But then, they probably didn't go through therapy

John Wayne, We Need You Now!

Born in Winterset, Iowa as Marion Morrison, the man eventually became a movie icon known as John Wayne.

Director John Ford used John Wayne as his leading man in many of his films to portray his vision of manhood as he thought should be practiced. Wayne seemed to be perfectly cast to be the tough, courageous leader who was honest, direct, and had high marks for integrity and not over thinking any problem. In his films, doing the right thing was always easy even if it was wrong. His roles also showed that a man could be caring and warm inside as long as he guarded these traits with discretion.

It is easy for me to image that when an actor becomes famous and beloved for projecting himself on the big screen in a certain way repeatedly, that eventually the man inside the actor changes to become the image itself. The image then becomes the guiding force behind public behavior and is carefully crafted and protected to secure an outgoing career and/or the need to be loved. And if the image is treated with nuance and skill, it always appears to be real.

So Marion, nicknamed Duke after his dog, became chariamticJohn Wayne. And the image John Ford and John Wayne created evolved into a representative symbol and, in the public’s eye, the symbol became the man. They became merged, symbiotically integrated, fused into one, the man and the legend.
John Wayne the actor or the man never seemed to be put into a situation where a problem was complex and answers were not obvious. That’s why the answers to the Viet Nam War were simple for the man. He was anti-communist and he previously joined with Senator McCarthy leading the effort to purge Hollywood of communists. He bought into the domino theory, supported Nixon at the time even though the country was changing.

Now there is no doubt that Duke always supported the troops but what American doesn’t, regardless of his politics. But supporting the troops is far different than supporting a foreign policy that cost the lives of thousands of people bringing hardship to thousands more, and engaging in a war that, in reality couldn’t be won. And it is hard for me to accept patriotism in the form of supporting the House Un-American Activities which seems to me to be one of the darkest moments in our history and is counter to what our Consitution states in clear language.

But when Kennedy defeated Nixon, he said this, "I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."
To me that sounds like a true patriot.
Let’s contrast this against the current brand of right wing Republicanism. People of this ilk, are doing everything possible to see that President Obama can’t do a good job for if he succeeds, it will impact their re-electability. They promote an aura of fear and a depth of their courage that would do Chicken Little proud. They themselves are frighten by the spector of having detainees sent to Illinois or to have one of extremists tried in New York. And every now and then, former VP Chaney crawls out of his bunker to sound the alarm that we should continue the polices that infringe upon our civil rights, support torture, and help recruit young men to turn whose goal is to harm us. Since most Americans have not idea of what consistitutes what can be called, “a healthy mind”, let me inform those unaware, that Dick Chaney is mentally ill. He is, and if you look and listen to him with that in mind, you will realize that I am right.
If a genie were to grant me three wishes, I would use one of them to bring back John Wayne to show us the wholesome courage and we grew to love about him I would ask him to help eliminate the policies of fear and tell the world that you “may not have voted for President Obama, but he is my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

That, pilgrim, is what a patriot would do.